Sysomos’ Inside Twitter report has sparked some good discussion regarding tweeting robots and the disproportionate output of the top five percent of users. But tucked at the bottom is a bit of great (and arguably more interesting) data on how we’re currently marketing through Twitter.

Twitter is clearly important to us as a group — marketers are 50x more likely than the population at large to have passed the lofty mark of two thousand friends. However, while listening can help us catch bad PR and keep an eye on key influencers, we’re still falling short spreading positive brand sentiments beyond our [relatively] tiny groups of followers.

When a real, live customer gives our brand, product, or service an enthusiastic thumbs up, we are too often the only one paying attention. Most of our customers don’t hear a thing. We are leaving huge amounts of marketing value on the table by failing to properly leverage these quieter (but equally powerful) voices. A thoughtful Amazon review creates value for months while equally thoughtful tweets have an unfortunate tendency to fall where nobody is there to hear them.

If making better use of social highlights is something that’s been on your mind, we’d love if you would drop us a note or comment with your thoughts as we get ready to move Stream into beta.